It has been 8 years, 11 months, and 20 days since Dolores was rushed to Wexford General Hospital, where she later died.

8 years, 10 months, and 11 days marks the time since the first statement (among many to follow) made by Dolores' solicitor, Joseph Bowe of Beauchamps Solicitors, that he would seek Dolores' financials and other records once he had the authority to do so – when either Dolores' Enduring Power of Attorney was registered or the Grant of Probate was received. He has never done so despite requests from Dolores' beneficiaries.

8 years, 3 months, and 15 days since the Grant of Probate for Dolores' estate.

7 years, 2 months, and 10 days since Dolores' last asset, her house, was sold. None of Dolores' three executors have given any indication of when her estate will be wound up.

Today marks 7 years, 8 months, and 6 days since Dolores' solicitor and co-executor of her estate was informed about serious flaws in the administration of her estate.

After being informed 11 months and 10 days previously of the serious irregularities in the administration of Dolores' estate, her solicitor and co-executor Joseph Bowe finally responded with a flat denial of any knowledge of what he was plainly and directly informed of and subsequently asked about several times during that period by beneficiaries of Dolores' state. After issuing that flat denial, Mr Bowe has since resumed his silence, even as further very serious issues with the administration of Dolores' estate have been identified.More…

At this point, it's been 6 years, 7 months, and 23 days since Saoirse's letter was delivered to the Managing Partner of Beauchamps Solicitors, John White, with a simple request of his intentions regarding the flawed administration of Dolores' estate:

“… can you please advise what steps if any, you as Managing Partner of Beauchamps Solicitors, or Beauchamps Solicitors plan to take.”

There is ought but silence for a response.

6 years, 8 months, and 27 days ago the three members of the Division of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal that decided Saoirse's complaint were invited to illuminate or at least comment on what we perceive as their bizarre decision of “No Misconduct” in the case of Dolores' solicitors. Silence reigns.More…

“Thirty seven” is the number of individuals that have corroborated the abuse Dolores and or Cecil suffered from their youngest son Ethan Maxwell to date.

Those who witnessed various aspects of this abuse include:

– Dolores' children– At least four of Dolores grandchildren– Former family physicians– Neighbours in Deansgrange, Finglas and Rosslare– Friends of neighbours– Relatives– Family friends– Health Providers– A former member of An Garda Síochána

In addition, many of these same individuals and others have themselves suffered from Ethan Maxwell's abusive nature, including various attempts at intimidation, financial scams, threats and extortion.

Sad but true: Ireland's mental health policy is informed by the 140–year oldLunacy Regulation (Ireland) 1871act. Despite decades of abusive mental health practices by the State and calls for reform by human rights groups and mental health advocates, it remains in effect.

The last asset of the estate of Eamonn Lillis and his wife Celine Cawley – their house – was sold on 03 October 2012 for €850,000. Mr Lillis has received his half of the sale proceeds. This would be thehouse where Mr Lillis brutally killed his wife. (His daughter received the other half, despiteMr Lillis' legal attempts to prevent her from sharing in the estate. After killing his wife, Mr Lillisreceived over €1.3 million from his wife's estate. Inexplicably, Ireland seems to be unashamed of this. )

From the date of sale of the last asset to payment of the beneficiaries took no more than 2 months and 20 days.

By contrast, in the much simpler and smaller estate of Dolores Maxwell (her solicitorDamian Brass describes it as "insignificant") her estate's last asset – her house – sold on 05 July 2012. Today marks 7 years, 2 months, and 10 days since Dolores' last asset was sold, with no word from her three executors of when Dolores' estate might be wound up.

Curious.

According to the official records of Met Eireann, Ireland's meteorological service, at midnight26 September 2010 the temperature in Rosslare Co Wexford was a brisk 8°C, or about 48°F.

Yet every single window in the home of Dolores Maxwell was wide open. Even the roof window(you open it by hooking a long pole into a crank) which none of her neighbours or childrenhad ever seen opened before was gaping into the chilly night air.

Her youngest son was also in her home. He had a skip delivered to Dolores' driveway earlierand was occupied in those wee morning hours filling it up with Dolores' belongings and otheritems from the house. Her youngest son also spent some of that time pacing back and forthin her bedroom.

Two and a half hours later, Dolores was fighting for her life, and had even stopped breathingfor a short time.

Curious.

On Sunday 26 September 2010, Dolores' youngest son called Dolores' Home Care Assistant, who spent a 1/2 hour every weekday morning helping Dolores.

Dolores' youngest son informed the HCA that Dolores would not be needing her services for the upcoming week. You see, Dolores was going to spend the week with him in Bray, and they were in route that very moment in his car. Yes, Dolores was sitting in the car with him.

Hmm. Now that's odd.

Dolores was actually in Wexford General Hospital, barely alive. Her youngest son had signed all the admittance forms hours earlier, informing the hospital that none of Dolores' children, grandchildren, relatives or anyone else were to be notified or allowed to visit Dolores.

Curious. How very curious indeed.

Two days after Dolores entered Wexford General Hospital, her youngest son was using her credit card.

That's not curious at all. On the contrary, it was predictable. He had been using Dolores' credit anddebit cards and some of her financial accounts as his own personal ATM for quite a while.

Now we should mention that all of Dolores' financial institutions confirmed that no one except Doloreshad authorization to use them. No one. Even her solicitor confirms this.

What we find interesting is this:

After being provided with undeniable hard proof that her youngest son was stealing from Dolores while shelay helpless in WGH, her solicitor and co-executor of her estate has not lifted a finger to protect
Dolores' estate and have the funds returned from this illegal use of her card - let alone have himprosecuted.

Her solicitor certainly said he would look into it. Here's one of his statementsabout it:

“The thing I don't have in this is, to get back to the credit card, I, it's much easier for meto get a grant of probate, and then write to Ulster Bank, I think it's Visa or something like that… ”

“Mastercard”

“…and I'll say to them, here's the Grant of Probate, I need the statements going back…”

Your old browser does not support iframes. Use this link instead: Audio Clip

And again:

“…if Ethan took money he wasn't entitled to, that he shouldn't have been entitled to, then it goes back into the estate.”

Those statements were made about two years ago. Why are all these issues met with the wall of silence, andthe most recent protests from Dolores' solicitor/executor that “I know nothing about these matters” ?

Curious.

Dolores Maxwell was a frugal woman who was known to wear clothes that her daughters had left behind when they moved out of the house. Generous with charities and those inneed, she was loathe to spend money on herself.

Her solicitor and co-executor of her estate knew her well enough to acknowledge this fact.

As he said:

“…I mean, was she taking out cash all over the place, it wouldn't be like
your mother…”

Your old browser does not support iframes. Use this link instead: Audio Clip

We don't think Dolores was "taking cash out all over the place." Not at all.

Yet it is undeniable that money was flying out of Dolores' accounts in the months before her death. During one four month period a single account saw transactionsthat averaged over €10,000 per week.

This was of course brought to the attention of Dolores' solicitor/executor a few monthsafter Dolores' death in 2010. Despite his many, many (recorded) statements that Dolores' financial records would be sought and investigated once the Grant of Probate was registered,enquiries about this from her beneficiaries are met with silence, or a flat denial that heever knew about these things.

Curious.

Less than two weeks before Dolores entered Wexford General Hospital, her youngest son called Eircom, Ireland's land line provider, and had her phone number changed. He told them it was because of “harrassing calls.”

Her youngest son had spent the last year and a half (following her husband Cecil'sdeath) isolating Dolores from her friends and family and interposing himself into the minutest areas of Dolores' life. He transferred some of her property to himself, puthimself on her state-subsidised phone and electricity accounts, and even took controlof her state-subsidised rubbish bin account.

Neither the Public Health Nurse, her children, brother or relatives in the UK couldreach her reliably by phone before Ethan had the number changed, let alone after. Dolores' mobile number was changed some time earlier and, according to her daughterSophie, Dolores was provided with three different mobiles by Ethan.These mobile numbers were not given out to friends or loved ones.

Even more interesting is the fact that two weeks into Dolores' hospitalization, her youngestson had her phone service disconnected, cut off her electricity, heat and alarm system, and even cut off the water to her house.

Curious behaviour, that. Very curious behaviour.

Dolores was rushed to Wexford General Hospital in the wee hours of 26 September 2010. The next two weeks saw her youngest son continue his “management” of her home.

When access to Dolores' house was finally gained in November 2010, her home was more remarkable for what wasn't there, rather than what was there. There was no electricity, heat, phone service, monitoring/alarm service, or water.

And other than her clothes, there was very little to indicate that Dolores had spent the last five years of her life living there.

Her favourite chair, that sat near the fire, was gone – broken in pieces and skippedby her youngest son.

There were no bills, or letters, or cards. There were no reminders or records of doctors' appointments, even though a followup visit for her broken arm had been scheduled for the same week she was admitted to Wexford General. There was no record or receipt of her visit to her GP less than two days before she entered Wexford General.

No phone bills. No statements from her financial institutions. No keys to the back garden gate, or the storage shed. Her beloved glass greenhouse was gone.

No messages on the answering machine.

Property belonging to the HSE which was there before Dolores entered the hospital was missing,

Her youngest son may have been a bit too frantic in preparing her house, however.

Stuck to the bottom of her damp outside rubbish bin were some torn up financial statements. More statements and financial information were found in the back of her fireplace, scorched and burned –partially burned, that is.

Saoirse Maxwell has sent a formal complaint to the Law Society of Ireland concerning Section 68 of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act, 1994. This requires a solicitor to state, in writing, the cost, estimate of costs, or at least the cost basis of services being provided. In the administration of Dolores' estate this has not been done, even though it has been well over three years since Dolores died, and repeated requests have been made to Beauchamps Solicitors for a Section 68 letter.

We think it is a very simple, cut and dry complaint. However, we will be surprised if anything is actually done about it.

Nonetheless, in the interests of the public good, we will report on developments in real–time as far as we are able, given the time differential. The complaint is against four solicitors of Beauchamps: Joseph Bowe, John Cunningham, Katherine Irwin, and John White.

Bowe and Cunningham are the solicitor/executors of Dolores' estate. Some question remains whether or not Cunningham still works at Beauchamps or is even reachable. We'll see.

A separate form was required for each solicitor, but because Part 1 and Part 4 are identical in each complaint, we only include those once. Because the complaints concern an estate Part 3 is not applicable and was not included. You can see the blank Law Society Complaint Form here.

Here are the complaints followed by the supporting documents, as sent to the Law Society via registered post on 22 January 2014:

White:

Update 1: 23 January 2014

An Post comes through.
If only other systems in Ireland worked half as well as An Post…

Once again, we think Saoirse's complaint will come to nought, as we have assigned precisely zero credibility points to Ireland's “legal”, um, “profession”.

On the other hand, the Law Society has been in a flurry of activity the past few months as it tries to appear relevant in order to forestall losing any “oversight” capability over its solicitors. Although radical reform of Ireland's legal profession has been called for since at least 1982, Ireland is now under an EU and IMF agreement — as part of a bailout package — to finally do just that. Of course the Law Society is fighting any change in the staus quo, as usual.

So how will the Law Society respond to Saoirse's complaint? Although the Law Society has referred such cases to the Tribunal for sanctions against the solicitors involved before (see Recent Updates for 20 January 2014), our best guess is that a quiet and discreet phone call will be made. But then again:

We think Saoirse could not have made it simpler for the Law Society. Cut and dried. Obvious. Inescapable. Manifest. Self–evident. No doubt.

We'll see.

Update 2: 20 February 2014

It should be utterly self-evident that
nobody can simultaneously combine
a policing and trade union role;
be their representative body and
simultaneously their regulator;
be advocate and also run the disciplinarian
body.

We wholeheartedly agree with Ivan Yates and his view of self–regulation by the solicitor–class. This nonsense is self–evident, indeed. We do not think it fools anyone.

A letter was sent to Saoirse on 05 February from the Law Society concerning her complaint of
22 January:

We don't know why the “Complaints Executive” Martin Clohessy sent a letter to John White alone, neglecting the three other complaints. We'll see how that plays out.

According to the Law Society, what should happen now is that White (and the other three solicitors) will respond to the Law Society by letter, and then the Law Society will forward the response(s) to Saoirse:

Once again, we'll see.

To be honest, we have never had a lot of confidence in this exercise. And now we learn that over eight months ago the Law Society received a complaint from a another beneficiary of Dolores' estate concerning the lack of a Section 68 letter, along with other issues such as conflict of interest. In that complaint, the beneficiary received a letter like the one above and has not heard a peep from the Law Society since.

We are not sure why this would be. Perhaps this is the answer:

The Law Society of Ireland has arranged their complaint process such that if you make a complaint about a solicitor for, oh let's say, a lack of a Section 68 letter, and then realise that the same solicitor has stolen a large amount of money that was due to be paid to you, you cannot bring a complaint about that until the Law Society closes the first complaint.

And so, if the Law Society takes 8 months, or 8 years to close the first complaint, you are out of luck. Charming. Another reason we sometimes refer to the Law Society of Ireland as the:

“Solicitors Trade Union for Protection, Insulation, and Defence”

Update 3: 03 March 2014

Having seen more than three weeks go by with no word from the Law Society, Saoirse wrote to the Martin Clohessy, the “Complaints Executive” handling her complaint on 03 March. She emailed this letter and also sent it by post the following day, just to be sure.

We have learned since (from sources other than the Law Society) that yes, Managing Partner John White was the person that Martin Clohessy sent Saoirse's complaints to. All four complaints. Well, thank you Martin, but Saoirse made four separate complaints to the Law Society. She was not complaining to White about the other three. WTF.

So what did White do with these complaints? Well, of course. He handed all four to Joe Bowe, who, along with his client and co-executor Ethan Maxwell is at the very centre of this absolute mess. Great.

As reported in Saoirse's letter above, the other beneficiary's complaint to the Law Society has gone precisely nowhere. Solicitor Kay Lynch, who is “handling” this complaint refuses to respond to repeated registered letters from this beneficiary for an update.

Yo! Kay! 'Sup with your self?
Answer your !&¿*±!?* mail!!

Even as extremely serious evidence of wrongdoing by White and Bowe has recently emerged, both Saoirse and the other beneficiary who filed a complaint are precluded from making any complaint about that sordid situation by the Law Society's rules—no further complaints accepted until the current complaints are done and dusted. You just can't make this stuff up. Welcome to Ireland.

Stay tuned.

“Solicitors Trade Union for Protection, Insulation, and Defence”

[Editor's note: As always, we seek and encourage anyone with knowledge of Dolores' life and/or the events presented here to contribute to this site. Memories, anecdotes, photos and documents are more than welcome. Clarification, correction and alternative views are encouraged and welcomed. Submissions ]